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AN 



ORATION, 

DELIP^ERED IN MIDDLEBURY, 



AT THE 



^ CELEBRATION 

OF THE 

FOURTH OF JULY, 

A. D. 1809. 



By SAMUEL SWIFT, i^aQ. a. m. 



'* LIBERTY is indeed little ehe than a name, ivJben the government 
•s too feeble to withstand the enterprises (f faction, to confine euch member 
of tbe society icithin the limits prescribed by the latvs, and to maintain all 
n the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property." 

WaSHIN'OTOK. 



MIDDLEBURY, VERMONT, 

PRINTED BY J. D. HUNTINGTON. 
A/y— 1809. 




MIDBLEBURYy July \, 180^, 
Samuel Swift, Es^. 

SIR, 

IN behalf of the Audience, the Committee of Arrangements tender 
ycu their cordial thanks for your very excellent Oration pronounced this 
day^ and request a copy for the press. 

John P. Kenshaw, 1 

Harvey Bell, jun. j 

Udney H. Everest, ! Committee of 

Thomas Leland, jun. T jirangements, 

William P. Herrick, | 

W. Wood Brush, \ 

©0© 

MlDDLEBURY, JULY 5, 1809. 

GiNTLEMENj 

IT is indeed flattering, that you suppose any production of mine, 
"jjrhten in a short time, and tinder the embarrassments of professional 
perplexity and boddy infirmity, should he worthy of the public eye. If 
this performance had been more perfumed iviih the oil of the midnight 
lamp, more polished by the labors of the closet, and more fraught with 
sentiment from the luorh of wiser politicians, it might have been more 
useful and more i.;teresting : Tou ivill perceive it has not the advantage 
of either. — But, however unpropilious were the circumstances under 
which the Oration was written, if it contains any sentiment, for the 
correctness of that I ask no indulgence : — That has not been the pro- 
duction of embarrassed reflection, or dictated by the enthusiasm of this 
celebration : — // was implanted in my breast with my earliest political 
impressions, and has " grown with my growth and strengthened with 
wy strength.** In addition to the inducement of your request, I am 
much influenced by the solicitations of some friends, who, from their re- 
mote situation in the house and my own weakness of lungs, were unable 
to hear the whole. For these reasons — not because the Oration is worthy 
<f so much notice — a copy is at your disposal 

lam. Gentlemen, 

With sincere solicitude fr your faiure happiness and prosperity. 
Tour humble servant, 

S. SWIFT. 



Messrs. John P. Henshaw, and others, \ 



Committee of Arrangements. 



ORATION. 



OWMMJMWW 



THE origin and progressive history of nations Is ever au 
interesting subject of contemplation. With their fortunes are 
connected the Hberty, the happiness and almost the very being 
of our whole race. — But the germe of national existence and 
liberty is generally planted in a soil, luxuriant of the frailties, 
the ignorance and the vices of man j^and, like the infant of days, 
their commencement is distinguished by nothing but their imbe- 
cility. — The world has witnessed many nations, which have 
gradually emerged from such small and feeble beginnings, and 
have continued for a while the brilliant monuments of the influ- 
ence of virtue, freedom and glory ; until, at length, they have 
been swept away by the flood of national corruption, and have 
left no traces behind them, but the melancholy ruins of desolated 
greatness. In the checkered history of rational prosperity and 
suffering, we have read, and wept at the fate of some states, 
which in the vigor of youth, and the fall possession of freedom 
and glory have fallen, guiltless victims, to the sword of foreigu 
tyrants or domestic traitors. 

But the occasion, on which we are met, Americans, pre- 
sents us a more splendid subject of contemplation. We are not 
this day called to celebrate the existence of a nation, whose 
origin is marked with obscurity and imbecility : — Or the short- 
lived being of a state, closed by the convulsive struggles of an 
untimely dissolution. We celebrate the emancipation of an em- 
pire from political oppression. 

America had received her existence, and had arrived to 
ihe vigor of raatuie age in the leading-strings of an arrogant — 



— 4— 

a dotard mother. Ever dutiful, but conscious of her untimely 
dependence, on the fourth of July, one thousand, seven hundred 
and seventy-six, she adopted the adventurous resolution of break- 
ing, with her own arm, the chain which entwined her existence to 
that of Great Britain. The events of that memorable day, 
after an awful conflict of eight years, in which every heart stood 
trembling and appalled at the impending aspect, which en- 
shrouded our political horizon, terminated in her deliverance : — • 
And America, at once, stood disenthralled, and clad in the 
robes of majesty. 

But let us not dwell too long, with melancholy rapture, 
on the events of that dreadful — that glorious day. While we 
drop a tear over the tomb of the war-worn soldier, who, after 
fighting the battles, and bearing the wounds of his country, 
has sunk under the agonies of dissolving nature: — While we 
heave a sigh of sympathetic sorrow for the widowed matron, 
whose husband — whose son — whose last hope has been immo- 
lated on the altar of her country ; let us pass to a subject, which 
is not less useful, if less susceptible of the embellishments of 
rhetoric. — At this period, all our recollections should not be oc- 
cupied with the tribute of gratitude, which is due to those, who 
have obtained our independence ; while we fold our arms at ease, 
as if secure from the dreadful destiny, which may blight our 
fairest hopes. 

When America assumed her destined rank, among the 
nations of the world, she presented a spectacle as novel in the 
history of mankind, as it was interesting : It was a spectacle, 
which excited not barely the joyous — the patriotic enthusiasm 
of her own sons ; — but every nation on the globe partook of 
the admiration and enthusiasm of Americans. Her deliverance 
was hailed as the introduction of one uninterrupted halcyon 
scene — a universal political millenium — a deliverance of the 
whole world from the ignorance, the vices and the corruption, 



— 5— 

which, from the first dawn of light upon this lower world, had 
fixed the destiny of man in a state of slavery to his fellow-man. 
By some, who had more patriotism than political intelli .rence, 
it was imagined, that the maxims, which the experience of other 
nations and ages had matured, where sown and vegetated in the 
depravity of other nations and Ages, and did not apply to the 
purity and perfection of renovated man. The dreamers and 
theorizers of the day looked forward with extatic anticipation to 
the period, when tlie few remaining imperfections and consequent 
sufferings and misfortunes of our once despairing race would 
involuntarily drop from us, and leave us in no respects below 
the unimbodied spirits above us, but in the abodes, we were des- 
tined to inhabit. 

Deliberate, practical men, who had less elevated senti- 
ments of the revolution, which had taken place toward the per- 
fection of our natures, still supposed, that the maxims of other 
times had some reference to the state in which our deliverance 
had left us. They still apprehended it possible that ou: free- 
dom might be but the dazzling splendor of a day ; that its ex- 
cesses might poison the brilliant hopes it had excited, and give 
us, in exchange for our dependence, the more awful dcsiiny of 
domestic anarchy. They supposed that something was yet to 
be done to secure our prosperity. 

Men of theory, on the other hand believed that already our 
national glory was as secure as the virtue of freemen could make 
it under the fostering care of the wisdom and patriotism of men, 
who knew too much of the price and value of freedom to in- 
trust it in any hands but their own. Indeed the character of free- 
men was almost too elevated to be trammelled by the imposition 
of the necessary duties for the supportof government or the restric- 
tions of salutary law. It was not indeed an unpopular sentiment 
of that day, that the people were a kind of infallible many-head- 
ed divinity; — that their voice (impious profanation !) was the 



voice of the Almighty j — or that they had, at legist, an impli- 
cit title to the perfection, the nominal application of which some 
tyrants have arrogated to themselves, that they « can do no 
wrong." 

In the sentiments of this early period of our history we may 
trace the germe of that discordance of sentiment, which, dur- 
ing our whole national existence has distracted our councils ; — 
rent assunder the dearest ties of individual friendship ; and jeop- 
ardized our very liberties. Perhaps we may look to the visions 
of this day for some of the dangers — some of the misfortunes, 
which have lately impended our national prosperity. It is not 
strange, that the same reveries of the imagination, which for 
many years have distracted a populous and powerful empire of 
the old world with revolutionary butcheries and the persecutions 
of phrenzy should have contaminated the political sentiments of 
America. 

Our country had scarce rested from the toils of her revolu- 
tionary conflict, when she v.'as agitated with the contending sen- 
timents, which practical and theoretical men had formed of her 
future destiny. The revolution had left her consisting of thirteen 
independent sovereignties, with various and conflicting interests 
and prejudices — with no uniting ties, which could scarce secure 
die ordinary reciprocation of a friendly intercourse — and with 
no common sentiments, but their inveterate prejudices for un- 
cnntroled licentiousness. Impatient of the tardiness of their an- 
ticipated mellenial felicities, the pedple could scarce be persuad- 
ed to bear the impositions m.ade necessary to repair the national 
bankruptcy, and the remaining eflPects of the ravages of v/ar. 
1'heir discontents had already broken out into overt acts of re- 
bellion, and threatened to snatch our anticipated happiness from 
our grafp. 

It was the great desideratum to unite these discordant 
materials into the form of a government, which would add to 



permanency In duration the liberty and security of the people. 
On one side, men thought they could read in the records of na- 
tional turmoil and misfortune — and in the page of human na- 
ture, blackened with ambition and crime, the necessity of con- 
centrating the principal energies of the nation. I'hey thought 
they Saw in Slate ambition and individual licentiousness the 
seeds of the nation's malady, which would bring on her infancy^ 
at least the grey hairs and imbecility of dotage. 

On the other, it was thought by some that the American 
States must look alone for danger to the Lnorduiate lust of the 
whole to swallow up its parts ; and by others, who had been 
more accustomed to trace the inflexible principles of mathe- 
matical science, than to adopt those of common sense to tlie 
characters and circumstances of men and nations, from the met- 
aphysical proposition they had formed, " that the people can- 
not be their own enemies," believed chat America " with all the 
vigor of youth and splendor of innocence was gifted with im- 
mortality.*' 

It was in the conflict of these various sentiments, that, 
after contending with tlie well-meant theories of visionary phi- 
losophiots, and the prejudices and designed wickedness of licen- 
tiousness, the present frame of our government was formed and 
received the seal of the nation. But with the formation of a 
constitution, the delirium of infuriated ph:enzy did not cease 
tu canker the vital principles of the Stale. 

Washington, who had scarce retired with the fadelefS 
laurels he had plucked from the flelds of his country's battles, 
and who was destined te add a civic to his martial crown, com- 
posed for a while the convulsed elements of the Ameiican char- 
acter. He had not run mad with theory and the Utopcaa 
dreams of the day : He had leained from the prospeiity and ad- 
versity — from the revOiUtloas and conflicts of other nations, 
tliat ambition — that passion composed a great proportion of the 



— 8— 

elements of the political world. Nor v/ere his the politics of 
metaphysical deduction ; — they were the science of common 
sense. It is the pride of federalists that the politics of Washing- 
ton are theirs. — By the reputation he had acquired in the field he 
was without a rival : — But, by his administration in the cabinet, 
he out-rivalled his own reputation. He had an almost uncon- 
troled command over the passions and prejudices of men : — But 
it was not the control of oppression ; it was the influence of 
virtue and wisdom. 

While his character Influenced the destinies of America, 
the licentiousness, which had been nurtured in the cradle of her 
revolution, burst out for a while but In the half-smothered ebulli- 
tions of discontent. Few of his political opposers dared to attack 
his private fame, and those few have acknowledged their infamy 
in the involuntary tribute of praise, which they now pay to 
his name. But the spirit of opposition was not long confined to 
the silent whispers of disaffection. 

A REVOLUTIONARY fire had been kindled in France, from 
a spark, it was said, which had been elicited from our revolu- 
tionary conflict. Its blaze flashed across the Atlantic, and set 
on firetlie kindred elements, which had not became latent in the 
breasts of the opposers of the American government. The rev- 
olutionary prejudices and partialities toward England and France 
had not subsided : W^ile the one was coupled in estimation with 
tyranny and oppression ; the otlier, " with all her crimes upon 
her head," was hailed as the hand-maid of virtue, innocence 
and glory. Such were the prejudices — such the devotion of the 
sycophants of French barbarity on this side of tlie water, that 
they were zealous to ape the very depravities — the verj' crimes 
of Frenchmen, The French national convention, in impious 
solemnity, voted — That there Is no GOD — that death is an 
eternal sleep. The opposers of the American government be- 
came the avowed contemnerB of God and his holy religion. — 



The " Terrible Republic," in her infatuation, had sworn eternal 
^esentment to all tlie monarchs of the earth ; and had begun the 
benevolent work of purifying, like herself, by an exterminating 
war, manv nations, whose air was purer than her own, from the 
contagion of oppression and crime. 

Washington and his administration, who had risen supe- 
rior to the revolutionary resentments and prejudices, felt the 
same respect for the justice, and the same indignation for the 
crimes of all nations. Because they would not bow their sub- 
missive necks to the contemptuous insolence of the emissavy of 
French frenzy, and acknowledge, on our own shores, die su- 
premacy of the representative of their depravity and excesses : — 
And because they would not violate the faith they had plighted 
to other nations by solemn treaty, and, with unconditional zeal, 
enlist in the dreadful contest, which France, without justice and 
without right, had begun with the whole world, the fathers of 
our Country, the asserters and defenders of her rights were de- 
nounced before the tribunal of the public, as " hoary-headed 
traitors" — as the enemies of liberty and France and the advo- 
cates of England and oppression. The honest prejudices of some, 
the theoretic folly, and the ambition and wickdness of others 
were the combustible materials which communicated the confla- 
gration from one end of the continent to the other. And at 
length the prmciples, which dictated this spirit of opposition, 
were infused into every department of the State in the adminis- 
tration of Mr. Adams' successor. 

In this compendious sketch we trace the visible lineaments 
©f the two great political parties, whose animosities still shake 
the pillars of the state to its centre. These principles are not dic- 
tated by the madness of a day ; but have each been nurtured 
with care from the dawn of our political existence. And on their 
prevalence may depend the future fortune of America. 



—10— 

In favor of one, its supporters appeal to the plainest dictate* 
of common sense ; and point yor. to the experience of all nations 
and ages ; They point you to the awfu-l fate, to which have 
been doomed the fairest hopes that ever brightened the prospects 
of republican virtue. 

In favor of the other, you are charged to place implicit con- 
fidence in the affected virtue of freemen ; and are confounded 
with the logical arguments of closeted theorists. — Political dream- 
ers and state jugglers have ever puzzled their heads in vain — in 
vain will they ever puzzle their heads to find out schemes of 
government, which are not founded in experience : — In vain will 
statesmen adopt measures, deduced solely from speculative 
principles, and not adapted to the characters and passions of 
men. Such, for a while, may amuse the vanity of their authors, 
and the curiosity of the world, with the ingenuity of their contriv- 
ance : — And, like the metaphysical speculations of schoolmen, 
which a'dded darkness to the most dismal midnight of the hu- 
man intellect, may distract the distempered brains of other mad- 
men : But, in duration, they are the temporary dreams of a 
night — The principles of government, and the spirit of the laws 
should ever conform to the infinitely varied interests, habits and 
caprices of men. 

On these principles, the framers of our constitution formed 
the system of compromise and pr.ictical wisdom, which is still the 
boast of Americans These are the principles, which energized 
the springs of our national government for tv/elve years. — We 
need not appeal to the assistance of analytical argument : — Wc 
need not call to our aidthe testimony of other nations to try the 
comparative virtue of those principles, which gave life and 
vigor to the administrations of Washington and Adams : — We 
need only compare them with the effects of thai blighted wis- 
dom, which gave a morbid animation to that which succeeded. 

But, let not the sensibility of neutral politicians be tortur- 
ed with anticipated wounds, at tlie mention of so invidious a com- 



—11— 

parison. — In putting the pencil to the canvass, and drawing the 
lineaments of the administration, which has now passed away, 
tlie features of imbecility and error, not those of wickedness, will 
be my object. For the sake of the public quiet, I will not — I 
dare not lift the veil, which conceals the personal vices, or pri- 
vate crimes of any political man. If, with unhallowed lips, I 
dare pronounce the name of Jefferson, I will not disturb the 
memory of his private life : I shall mention him only as the rep- 
resentative of a political philosophy, as imbecile In theory, as des- 
tructive in practice. And even, if the sentiments, which have 
influenced the destiny of America for eight years, were but the 
sentiments of a president and his privy council, they might pass, 
with their authors, undisturbed to the retirements of private life : 
They are only worthy of notice, because they are the real or 
adopted sentiments of a dominant party. — Nor would I unneces- 
sarily fan the fire of party rage, which is now ready to wiap the 
continent in flames. — At the mention of this subject, fhe heart 
thrills with the emotions of mingled horror and regret. By the 
influence of its poisonous principles many of the social endear- 
ments of life are destroyed ; — brother is armed against brother 
in a deadly warfare of political extermination. We boast of our 
Wisdom; but the avenues of political conviction axe forever closed 
to the arguments of reason : They are spent in vain upon the 
passions and prejudices of men.— Already the infection Is corrod- 
ing the virtue and morals — the last hopes— the vital principles of 
our republican Institutions : And the sickly constitution of our 
government is tottering at the approach of dissolution. But, if 
there is ground of alarm ; I will not hesitate to sound tlie tocsin. 
If there is danger in the erroneous sentiments, which Influence the 
springs of national action ;— I will not shrink from the task of 
pourtraying the danger of that error. 

It is indeed painful to anticipate misfortunes. We turn 
with disgust from the picture of Impending misery. We hate 
to dwell in our contemplations on the wretchedness of anarchy. 



—12^ 

or oppression, or on the abodes of that despair, which accom* 
panics the loss of recollected freedom. Wc hate to contemplate 
the horrors of anticipated war — our friends butchered — out 
dwellings wrapped in flames. But the dread of expecting dan- 
ger may one day bring upon us an accumulated weight of real- 
ized wretchedness. 

The American government had been, for some time, ani- 
mated with the emanations of genius and energy, which beam- 
ed from the resplendent mind of Washington. Under the aus- 
pices of his administration, the dislocated fragments of the A- 
merican States had become adjusted into a well proportioned 
form, which, while it presaged permanency to the duration of 
its prosperity, gave a certaia pledge of freedom and security to 
the people. Their measures and laws, instead of weakening, 
seemed to concentrate the scarce united powers of the nation, 
and to energize every spring of government. 

Washington, who felt no impulses but those, which were 
inspired by a regard to the prosperity and glory of his Country, 
in selecting candidates for the offices in his power, had ever been 
deaf to the solititations of party, or private friendships. 

Whenever rebellion reared its head in the clamours of dis- 
content, his active and vigilant mind, with complacent energy, 
resisted the threatening danger. When the infamous Genet 
landed on our shores commissioned from the dreadful cabinet of 
French imposture and delusion, to erect a standard here where 
the incipient spirit of rebellion had fired many a breast ; — then — 
never did the mind of man shine so resplendent as Washington's 
■ — O, then— I tremble at the destiny we escaped — if our cabinet 
had then been directed by French partialities, in less time — with 
infinitely less struggle, than it cost her to escape the fangs of 
British oppression, America might have been ingulphed in the 
tremendous horrors of French murder and devastation. But by 
the influence of the federal administration, the emissary of 



—IS— 

France was disrobed of his official terrors and the nation was 
partially composed. 

Under the guidance of Washington and Adams' adminis- 
trations, the nation had repaired her bankrupt fortunes •.' — She 
had lost the character of a factious, contemptible republic : And 
ty her commerce, whose canvass whitened every sea and every 
ocean ; — by her arts and her wealth, she had become elevated to 
an enviable rank among the nations of the earth. Mr. Jefferson 
found her emphatically " in the full tide of successful experi- 
ment." Happy for America, if her experiment had been as suc- 
cessful under the auspices of his administration. 

When the philosopher ofMonticello was selected by the 
suffrages of his country to direct het destinies, every mouth was 
prepared to proffer the homage of approbation. It was hoped, 
that the licentiousness and philosophic madness, which had fit- 
ted so well as the gowns of the leaders of an aspiring faction, 
might never enrobe the magistracy of our Country. But, Alas ! 
many of the features of the late administration are msrked with 
the deep-impressed influence of those principles, which received 
their existence in the same soil, where vegetated the spirit of A- 
merican freedom, were invigorated by the aliment of French rev- 
olutionary rebellion, and have ever since grown rank under the 
careful culture of its advocates. Their influence was early dis- 
covered in immolating to the demon of the day every tried pat- 
riot, by whose aid America had attained her distinguished eleva- 
tion. The heroes of the revolution were ungratefully forced from 
office to give place to men, who, in that day of danger and suffer- 
ing, were " puling in tlieir nurses' arms," and were distinguish- 
ed by no reputation, but that mock fame, which is heard only in 
the clamorous huzzas of a mob ; and withers with the factious 
turbulence, that gave it existence. 

When an European nation had deprived us of a right, guar- 
anteed by her own solemn agreement, and which she was una- 



—14— 

ble to withhold, this administration, like one, whose disposition is 
better refreshed by the ease of philosophic speculation, and more 
conversant with the bargain and sale of a counting-house, than 
the danger of powder and ball, exhausted our treasury to buy 
it back : — It was indeed a gainful acquisition of our own right, 
because we bought with it the vices and the turbulence of all Eu- 
rope. 

America, by the contiguity of her immense shore to wa- 
ters, which unite her to the arts and wealth of every nation on 
the globe, seems destined to become great by her commercial en- 
terprise. No nation, ancient or modern, was ever free, or great 
without the enterprise and communication of commercial inter- 
course. By its aid, the nations of the ancient world erected a 
monumental pillar which, although they have long since been 
buried in the great cemetery of nations, will give to the remem- 
brance of their liberty and glory the perpetuity of time. By its 
aid, the dignity and freedom of Modern Europe resuscitated from 
the dismal grave of liberty, science and the arts. — The exporta- 
tion of the superabundant produce of our immense Country, 
while it buys the conveniences and enjoyments— the arts and im- 
provements of the world, inspires her sons with a spirit of indus- 
try, which secures them against the terrors of famine and the 
wretchedness of vice ; and with a spirit of enterpise and im- 
provement, which are ever a protection against the encroach- 
ments of power. — Instead of that fostering care, to which our 
Commerce was entitled, we have seen it blighted by the baleful 
influence of that system of politics, which our nation will deplore, 
when the names of many of its advocates are erased from perpet- 
ual remembrance. — It is not by an embargo of eighteen months, 
which has left *' shelterless and naked," or clad in indigence and 
rags a numerous portion of our industrious citizens, that we 
judge of its hostility to commerce. 

Whek the nation were anxiously looking up to the adminis- 
tration of oar government for protection from the reiterated in- 



—15— 

suit and insolence of European nations, which have disgraced 
our national history, tliey looked in vain. We have seen the 
wealth of America exposed to sudden and resistless assault — 
our towns ready to be sacked and in flames, under the influence 
of an inefficient system of protection. Americans demanded a 
system of dignified naval defence for the protection of our sea- 
board and commwce, and were answered ** We give you a gross 
of gun-boats fresh from the philosophic crucible of the nation." 
They demanded the suppression of domestic treason, and the ex- 
ecution of justice upon the foreign Insulters of our Country, and 
were amused and afflicted, more than our enemies were lemfied 
Vi'ith proclamat'tom and *' restrictive energies." 

But, we are not disposed to make war upon a few measures 
of an administration, whose effects may cease with the perishable 
fame of their authors. It is not in them — it is in the sentiments, 
which govern the springs of national action, that we may find 
danger. The fabric of our Constitution, is built upon a system 
of compromise ; calculated to be fitted up for various degrees of 
refinement and vice, to which the nation may be destined. But 
it needs the constant vigilance of those, to whom it is intrusted. 

On one side, the growing licentiousness and immorality of 
the Country are ready to undermine its pillars ; — on the other, 
state ambition and jeolousy are ready to rise upon its desolated 
ruins. — One needs not to be gifted with a spirit of prophetic an- 
ticipation to predict, that, if ever wc are doomed to the melan- 
choly fate, which has despoiled the happiness and prosperity of 
every nation, from the morning of time to this period, we shall 
owe our misfortunes to the united influence of these two calami- 
tous principles. 

If we have any regard to the rights and liberties, which 
alone elevate us, in the least, above the most groveling slaves of 
Turkish despotism, it is time — it is high time, we were alarmed 
at the increasing impression they are making upon our once bril- 



^16— 

liant hopes. — Not only the native vigor of the Constitution is suf* 
fered to languish without the aid of the corresponding energy of 
the laws ; but many of the strongest and safest pillars of the con- 
stitution are already uprooted. 

The constitutional mode of choosing the chief magistrate 
of the Union was ever a sure pledge against the intrigue of the 
large States, and an invaluable consideration to the small ones, 
for the influence, in the national councils, of three-fifths of the 
black slaves of Virginia. But this important pillar is removed 
from the superstructure : And Virginia may forever have a 
president of her own. 

Our national system of jurisprudence is almost the last 
tic — the last feature of our constitution, in which we can place 
a common confidence. But its independence, without which, 
liberty is but a sokmn mockery ^ has been attacked, with a no less 
ruthless arm : An important part of it has been sunk forever j 
the judges of the remainder have been arraigned without cause 
before the most august tribunal of the nation j and its juris- 
diction attempted to be wholly destroyed. 

To this dreadful account of our danger,?we may add our 
increasing defection from the moral and political virtue of our 
ancestors. The influence of modern skepticism, and the doc- 
trine of unconstrained licentiousness, which have ever been the 
attendants of the political philosophy of our country, have giv- 
en an accelerated rapidity to tlie progress of our national de- 
pravity. The sacreJ institutions of religion, our only protec- 
tion against licentiousness and vice, and the only security for 
our republicanism, have been decried as the instruments of 
oppressson in the hands of tyrants : And religion itself, as a 
lure to beguile us into slavery. — The levelling system of extreme 
equaFity has not been the least destructive sentiment of modern po- 
pitical philosophy. By its advocates, consequences have been 
encouraged, which even they, in the sobriety of dispassionate 



--17— 

reason, dare not allow. In the fervor of affected patriotism, 
they have waged successful war upon that distinction, which is 
due to virtue tilents and age, and upon that sentiment of eleva- 
tion, which belongs to those, who are enrobed with the authority 
of the laws ; and which are so necessary to the order and har- 
mony of every public and private community. In this respect, 
the order of weii|jggvii5t(;d society is tota'ly reversed : And the 
pure ermine of justice is scarce thought contan^nated by com- 
mingling with the debauchery of the meanest servant of vice, 
which disgraces community. Even filial piety, and conjugal 
and fraternal affection are scarce placed on the list of virtues by 
the disciples of the modern school. Tills reversion of the order 
of nature, and this confusion ot all the distinctions of society, 
have much accelerated the progress of licentious sentiment. — 
By thus removing all the restraints of legal, moral and religious 
responsibility the passions and depraved appetites of man are let 
loose to pray upon the virtue and morals of our Country : And 
we have already anticipated, in our infancy, the vices of old age. 

It is deplorable, that among the numerous hordes, who 
have so long been wandering in the mazes of error, very few are 
now able to dispel enough of the mists of political prejudice to 
find out even the narrow paths of strict moral honesty : And 
still fewer are free from the implicit control of political dishon- 
esty. 

It is deplorable, that -©ur right of suffrage, instead of be- 
ing, as we boast, our peculiar safeguard, has already become 
venal, and is debased to the object of bribery and corruption, and 
the successful instrument of aspiring politicians : And by f r- 
ther corrupting our political morality may itself become the ve- 
ry means of our subjugation. All the political liberty — all the 
right, which we boast of governing ourselves, will be but an 
ignis fatuus to lead us into danger, when they cease to l the 
pledge of our personal liberty and security. We shall thea iii 

C 



. —18— 

vain be pr6ud of ot>r freedom of suffrage j—we may then vote— 
and vote — and we shall but vote ourselves the slaves of sOi^ne 
popular tyrant. — I would not give the smallest endearment of 
private life for the liberty* of voting myself Ernperor of the world 
if it would not secure to me the liberty of my person, and tlie en- 
. jcyment of my property and my friends. 

In every free government, the faigBnaf national deprav- 
ity is never stationary unless cliecked by laws^ which anticipate 
its progress — The first dawnings of moral, or political corrup- 
tion should be resisted by the energy of the law, and the vigor' of 
its execution. — To us — to all republics, the only foundation of 
whose hope isv'rtue, it is doubly important. Should America 
ever be scourged with the vices and crimes of European nations, 
she cannnot expect their duration. 

Perhaps we may read our fortunes in the history of the 
AmphictiorJck league, which, like our constitution, imited un- 
der one head all the Republics of Greece. The, chain which uni- 
ted them was imbecile and inefficient : They soon become de- 
generate ; and the rights and" fortunes of the small states were 
lost in the wars and. conflicts of Athens and Sparta. At length 
the Thebans and Thessa'ians, actuated by a common resent- 
ment, prcscr'bed tlie Phccians of their remaining privileges, and 
invited the arms of all Greece to execute the proscription. At 
length, the aml)itious Pliilip tf Maccdon, with an ardent and 
popular zea!, enlisted in the ammmir war, and taking advantage 



of their factions and dlssentions, made himself the acknowledged 
master of the whole. 

Virginia, Pennsylvania and New- York are each of suffi- 
cient c:xU'nt to become powerful empires. — Whenever the sons 
of American pii^ rims shall lose the rigid virtue of their fa- 
thers ; whenever they shall Lcrome susceptible of bribery and 
corruption, we shall in vain expect those powerful States will 



—19— 

brook an equality with Rhode-Island and Delaware under the 
ties which now render them constituent members of the same 
government. 

Perhaps we have yet to learn from chastisement — from ad- 
versity and suffering — from revolution and war, the value and 
danger of our liberties. Already we seem ripe for the dissolu- 
tion, which some, politicians have deeirud, ths i-uihanasy ci Re- 
publics. Should not the growing licentiousness of the Scare be 
checked by timely resistance, we may expect to see it undermin- 
ing the pillars of our Union, and the fair fabric, which has 
hitherto protected us from tlie storma of anarchy and civil dis- 
cord, crumbling to dislocated fragments, and oui rights buried 
in their stupendous ruins. Instead of our liberty, wo may be- 
come the slaves of some popular sycophant, whose tpec'iji. leviiy, 
in the effervescence of party rage, has raised him to power over 
the ruins of our virtue and prosperity. Instead of the pure and 
invigorating air, which we inhale in the habitations of freedom, 
we may inhabit the abodes of oppression, where horror and 
wretchedness will be our companions : Where not one solitary 
ray of hope shall cheer the dismal midnight cf despair : Where 
the gray hairs of old age shall sink " with sorrow to the grave ;" 
and the sons of American freen)an, roaming through the dreviry 
haunts cf hopeless slavery, will but aggravate each other's wretch- 
edness, by reciprocating the melancholy lamentation — *' Alas ! 
we were once free ; — but now, farewell, delightful fields of once 
realized freedom — farewell hope ; — Welcome slavery — welcome 
wretchedness — welcome dungeons of an unfeeling tyrant !" 

But, let us turn our eyes from this picture of misery, to 
where hope animates the prospect. — Perhaps the day of strange 
things and governmental folly, with its uaik foreboding clouds, 
has passed from our land. Perhaps the sun of fv:-dcralism has 
not set forever : — And the radiant beams, wliich aro seen spring- 
ing from the east may be but tlie dawn of its " latter day glory." 



"iS 



—20— 

It has been the favorite theory of some politicians, that the 
gangrene of national constitutions is as certain as the dissolution 
of the human frame. But the disease of your government, 
Americans, is implanted no where hut in your own passions and 
vices, v;hich are the subjects of yoilr control. The constitu- 
tion of your government, if administered with the energy, ■which 
resists the first risings of rebellion and vice, may yet preserve 
your prosperity. As you estimate the privileges of freemen, 
support by your virtue and example — support by your suffrages 
the sentiments, which will ensure them. — Let your minds be ele- 
vated above the prejudice, which withholds confidence from the 
members of an opposite party. — Where there is virtue — where 
there Is wisdom — there should be your confidence. 

Should the hope be realized, which is excited by the first 
measure of our present chief magistrate, in the prompt and im- 
partial settlement of our long disturbed relations with a foreign 
power, and in rescuing us, by his benevolent arm, from impend- 
ing misfortune and realized suffering, the name of Madison may 
yet be our '* strong tower." Under Iiis guidance, perhaps, we 
may turn, like the prodigal son, from our licentiousness, riot and 
beggary, clad in the sable habiliments of mourning and repent- 
ance, and sufficiently chastised for our national backsliding. 

But, under whatever guidance, we turn from our wayward 
paths, if not too late, to those of unsliaken integrity and dignifi- 
ed practical wisdom, we shall soon see America rising — and ris- 
ing, until the handful of impoverished patriots of *76 shall outri- 
val the nations of the old world in whatever is great, prosperous, 
©r happy. 



V 



